Abstract
Love is a big and subjective topic in human life. It is an important element in a marital relationship. This study aims to investigate the relationship between love and marital satisfaction among ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. This study implements a survey study design using a questionnaire aimed at gathering personal background information and measuring marital love and satisfaction among the sample population. A total of 384 ethnic Chinese samples who were Malaysian citizens in the age group from 25 years to 44 years old and have been married for at least one year and above voluntarily participated in this study. Overall, the findings showed that love has a significant relationship with marital satisfaction. Love in this study which has been divided into three components namely, intimacy (r = 0.852 **, p <0.00), passion (r = 0.835 **, p <0.01) and commitment (r = 0.737 **, p <0.01) showed a very high significant relationship with marital satisfaction. These findings show the importance of love in helping to increase marital satisfaction among married couples. Among the implications of the study is to enrich the field of psychology that focuses on marriage and culture and counselling as well as sharing knowledge that can serve as a reference to the helping profession.
Highlights
Marriage is a major factor in the development of human life
Love in this study which has been divided into three components namely, intimacy (r = 0.852 **, p
To help improve the quality of relationships and the well-being of married couples, love is an important thing in achieving marital satisfaction
Summary
Marriage is a major factor in the development of human life. The intimacy of the husband and wife in a marriage is very important because the well-being of a matrimony is built based on strengthening the relationship between the husband and wife at the early stage of a love relationship (Willi, 1997; Wilfried, 2010). Various studies have been conducted to explore marital satisfaction in various backgrounds and cultural perspectives This situation shows that the study of marriage and marital satisfaction is necessary by looking at the well-being of marital relationships in local contexts (Razidah, 2010; Normahwati, 2012; Hidayati, 2013; Bahareh, 2014; Zakaria et al, 2018). The context of love is considered an important factor in achieving marital satisfaction in the process of the relationship between spouses (Sprecher & Hatfield, 2017). This situation can observe how couples or husbands and wives respond to the expectations and responsibilities set by the culture and social environment in marriage. Even in the ethnic Chinese tradition, Confucian cultural thinking still influences the ethics of ethnic Chinese marriage (Hong & Liu, 2013)
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